Vasadohara
December 11, 2006
In the photo above you see a priest holding a long wooden stick over the homa fire. Here’s how it was explained to me:
This is part of the ritual that takes place at the very end of the yagya. Not all yagyas. Mostly for special yagyas like Navaratri and Shivaratri. The idea is that during the ritual all the mantras are chanted and all the offerings are made and now it is time to ask for what one wants. But, the rules are that your request accompanys only one offering. Thus if the offering were just a spoonful of ghee, it would hardly leave enough time to ask for everything.
So this piece of wood was carved with a small bowl like area at the top and a long thin channel is carved down the center leading to an opening at the end. Ghee is poured (as you see in the photo above) into the bowl and it streams down the vasodhara to drip into the fire in an unbroken, continuous stream. Thus the offerings can take a very long time indeed!
There is a section of the Yajur Veda called Chamakam which is essentially a long list of everything material and spiritual that an individual could possibly want. So that is typically chanted when a vasodhara is used.